


I would choose to be with you (as if the choice were mine to make)

by InTheName



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/F, Swan Queen Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-03 03:08:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15810069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InTheName/pseuds/InTheName
Summary: In a world where soulmates are destined but not guaranteed, two women try to navigate a bond that was not pre-ordained. Regina lost her belief in soulmates long ago. Emma never believed in them to begin with. But when Emma’s soulmate comes to town, will she cling to her disenchantment or will she choose to follow the path fated to her?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Swan Queen Week - Day One: fuck destiny, I choose you
> 
> You all can thank theforgottenpromises, soundslikehope, KizuRai, nuhcoal and Moonlit for encouraging this madness.
> 
> Title from "So It Goes" by Marianas Trench

Regina was fourteen when she met her soulmate. 

He had soft brown eyes and strong calloused hands, and a mark of an intricate, golden labyrinth that matched the one she’d seen every day of her life. 

Regina had blushed when his shirt had become untucked while he mucked Rocinante’s stall and had paled when it had ridden up as he turned to wave at her. She rudely stared at the exposed area above his hip, but she couldn’t look away. She let the waves of realization crash down on her as she stood in place. When she regained control of her body, she didn’t return his greeting, she ran from the stable with a grin on her face.

She was fourteen and she couldn’t believe her luck. That she had met the one she was destined to be with so young. She told Daniel in hushed whispers while her mother was on the other end of the estate, entertaining the local nobility for afternoon tea. She’d held his hand, and he’d held her heart. 

Everyone was given a soulmate. A guarantee of their perfect counterpart, someone who would fit just right against you and would fill in all your missing pieces. There was someone for everyone.

Regina had grown up socializing with the wealthy and royal, and she was young when she first noticed non-matching marks. Two high class nobles, whose ambition had overpowered destiny. From then on, Regina saw them everywhere—at least on those who were unfortunate enough to have the marks where they could not hide them. Along a wrist, behind an ear, on the back of a neck, across a shoulder. It was when she went to the market with her father that she would see pairs of matched soulmates more commonly.

At ten years old, Regina understood that not everyone chose their soulmate. 

Regina grew up spending every Sunday afternoon with her father. They would read books together in the gardens, losing themselves to the world on parchment for the few hours they were allowed on their own.

When Regina was twelve, they read a story of a prophesized battle, a forbidden love. The man was to defend his kingdom from any threat, including his soulmate who brought a great army knocking at their gates. In the end, he’d chosen one fate over another. 

“I don’t understand, Daddy,” Regina had asked, still young and believing. “They were soulmates.”

“You put too much stake in soulmates, dear child.” Henry had said gravely. Regina had looked up with wide eyes. Her father had closed the book and put it away. 

Her mother, with disapproving eyes and a dark twisting soulmate mark, had called her to the sitting room. As Regina left, she saw her father look wistfully at the loops of blues and greys that adorned his wrist. She’d always thought that her father had chosen her mother over his soulmate.

It then dawned on her that, maybe, not everyone found them.

But Regina, she had found her someone, the one she could turn to when her cold mother deemed her incompetent and tried to teach her a lesson. Or when her tutors pushed her to a perfection that her body, her mind resisted as it dragged across the grain of her being. 

They spent three years in fleeting moments. Three years in hidden kisses and secret meetings. They stole moments wherever they could, the promise of forever underscoring every touch, every tender moment, and it felt warm. 

Until one young girl lost control of her horse, brought the King to choose a bride, and let slip a truth that Regina had begged to remain hidden.

Regina thought this was it. This was the moment they could choose to be together. In the open, unafraid, as long as they were far enough away from her mother. But they weren’t quick enough. 

Her mother commanded the room the second she entered the stable. Regina felt her presence like ice on her skin. 

For a moment, it seemed like they could do this. Be together. For a moment, it seemed her mother understood Fate to be a force too powerful to reckon with.

The illusion was shattered and Cora held Daniel’s heart in her hand and surely she wouldn’t be able to hurt him, not her soulmate. Surely, this was where destiny intervened. 

He dropped dead on the floor. The loss was instantaneous. Cora might as well have crushed her own daughter’s heart. 

Sitting on the floor, tears disfiguring her face, Regina learned that some people lost their soulmates.

***

In the end, Regina had bent to her mother’s will. Had married the king. Had played mother to his daughter. Her heart was heavy and grew darker day by day. 

She carried Daniel with her every step along empty corridors, every walk in the King’s elaborate gardens that looked nothing like the ones she’d left behind, every curtsey before her husband to show she was a demure and loyal wife. She carried him in her heart. She carried him in her soulmate mark. 

She gazed at it in her mirror, the intricate golden tendrils weaving over and under each other. Her mark used to glimmer with the hope of a naïve girl. Now, it lay flat and dull against her skin that had paled drastically since she’d moved to Leopold’s castle. 

The mark pulled at her apathetic heart where it lay still in her chest.

Rumpelstiltskin would be expecting her now. She’d begun lessons with him to learn to foster the power her mother had suffocated her with her whole life. A shot at being in control of her own life was so tempting, even if it was tainted in darkness and paths one cannot return from.

Maybe she no longer had a soulmate to live for, but she would find another purpose to drive her. She felt the anger burn deep within her, at injustice and optimism and choice. 

What good was having your own will if you were not free to wield it? 

Regina dressed for the day and decided she would not attend her lesson. It was pointless anyway, to try to fight for her freedom. And she was beginning to doubt that the value outweighed the cost.

Of course, even this choice was not her own. 

Regina sat at the dining table, picking at the plate of food she wouldn’t finish, when Rumpelstiltskin appeared. He taunted her with truths and assured her she wasn’t going to be able to leave this apprenticeship anytime soon.

She’d let the darkness in and now it would consume her. She couldn’t choose to leave it behind, she’d already started down the path.

Regina’s appetite left her, which was surprising considering how little she’d had to begin with.

Regina raced up to her chambers the second Rumpelstiltskin left, her mind a sea of loss and misery and futile attempts to change her life. She needed fresh air, she needed to hit something, she needed…

Whatever she needed, it wasn’t here. 

Regina walked out to her balcony and stared at the courtyard surrounded by the four walls of the castle. She hit the railing, trying to release some of the frustration building inside her. Her mind was racing, spiralling. If she could just get some of these goddamned feelings out, maybe she could _think_.

She threw her weight behind her next hit, her weight and something else. She felt her newfound magic awaken, it was angry and hopeless and powerful. The barrier gave way beneath her fingertips and she was falling.

She let out a scream. This wasn’t what she had wanted, was it? She felt the desperate urge to _stay alive_ start to bubble within her, below the surface of apathy. 

Then suddenly, she wasn’t falling anymore.

Regina looked up from the ground that had stopped coming toward her an alarming rate. There was something small in front of her. Someone small. A green fairy. Regina recognized the force that had broken her fall as a magic that her body was trying to reject.

“Put me down.” Regina said, annoyed that even her own demise had been taken from her hands but her tone sounded more afraid than anything. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you a second chance.” The fairy replied. “My name’s Tinkerbell.”

Tinkerbell’s idea of a second chance was a far cry from what Regina would have guessed. The fairy’s energy was intoxicating, muting the frenzy inside Regina’s head and making her think that maybe she could have someone in her corner. A friend, perhaps.

“You need love, Regina.” Tinkerbell assured her over a drink at a tavern outside the castle’s reach. Tinkerbell had flown them there, passing over the curtain wall far above where the guards thought to keep watch. No one would know Regina was gone.

“I’ve never seen pixie dust fail.” Tinkerbell said with excitement bursting at the seams. She was full-sized now, which seemed only to make her optimism grow. Regina felt a fear begin to claw at the edges of her heart. “It will show you your perfect match.”

“I had my perfect match.” Regina grumbled. “Snow White had him killed.”

“Pixie dust is powerful, Regina.” Tinkerbell said with a grin. “It can give you another.”

“Another soulmate?” Regina breathed. She didn’t know why the thought had her throat constricting, or why she suddenly felt trapped sitting outside in the open air.

“It can find your happy ending, if you let it.” Tinkerbell assured.

“My happy ending looks like Snow’s head on a plate.” Regina growled.

“Regina, no.” Tinkerbell protested with a shake of her head. “What if I can do what I say?”

“Then I’d say that’s real magic.” Regina teased. From what she knew of magic, destruction and imposition, Regina was certain creating a second chance at love was a pipe dream.

Tinkerbell returned that night with the pixie dust. Late enough that Regina’s doubts had begun to fester and grow. 

“Tinkerbell, I don’t think this is such a good idea.” Regina said as the fairy flew through the window.

“Of course it is, Regina.” Tinkerbell said. Her hope was tempting. “This will help you find happiness. It will save you. And saving you, well, that’s what’s going to save me.”

Regina grew suspicious. Tinkerbell hadn’t mentioned this would benefit herself. Regina knew enough of ambition to know that ulterior motives didn’t ever fare well for her.

Before she could protest, Tinkerbell sprinkled her pixie dust and Regina was awash with it. She was light and high and it felt like leaving what was heavy behind.

Tinkerbell sprinkled the pixie dust into the air and Regina felt a tingling against her skin. It ran across her body like a current, racing to where her soulmate mark rested. A sense of foreboding tried to claw its way to the forefront of her mind but Regina was too preoccupied with _what if this works_.

The trail led to a tavern, unlike the one they’d frequented for a late lunch. It was full of people, abuzz with talk and cheer. Regina felt very much an onlooker.

“There he is. Your soulmate.” Tinkerbell whispered as they looked through the window of the door to Regina’s presumed happy ending. “The one with the lion tattoo.”

There is was, displayed proudly on his forearm. His soulmate mark. Regina felt her stomach drop. Did that mean…?

“You can let go of all the anger that weighs you down.” Tinkerbell encouraged. The fairy’s words reminded her of the simmering rage that hadn’t quite rested since the death of her fiancé. 

It bubbled to the surface at once. Affronted that this woman would dare trivialize what she had with Daniel by bringing her here.

“Take me home.” Regina said in a stone voice. Tinkerbell’s eyes widened and Regina’s demeanor did a one-eighty from the hopeful girl who longed for another chance at a soulmate. 

“Regina, you can be happy.” Tinkerbell pleaded.

“Take me back, now.” Regina said, her spine stiff and her gaze ruthless.

Tinkerbell gave the smallest of nods and they returned to the skies in silence. When they reached her chambers, Tinkerbell tried one last time to change her mind.

“Regina, you don’t need to be afraid.” Tinkerbell said softly. Regina rounded on her with fire in her eyes.

“I am not afraid!” Regina yelled. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? What you’ve taken from me?”

“Regina, I didn’t—” Tinkerbell started.

“Go!” Regina said, turning away from the fairy before she did something she wouldn’t regret.

Tinkerbell was left, taking what was left of the pixie dust with her. Regina felt her now-familiar despair creeping back in, no longer muted by light magic and promises of a second chance. She undressed and looked down at her soulmate mark, now soft yellows and harsh blacks. A mane of a lion or a connection tangled in the wind. Regina felt sobs being wrenched from her body and it ached. Her whole body was pained in a way Regina hadn’t known to be possible. 

There was nothing left of Daniel now. Nothing to carry with her. And everything that had surrounded their love, their soulmate bond, felt cheapened and mocked.

What use was destiny if it could be thrown away so easily and replaced by a paltry imitation?

***

Emma‘s mark was dark red, looked like a rose with winding vines or a jagged, open wound. She kept it hidden from prying eyes, from foster parents who looked too closely and foster siblings who took everything precious from her.

She wore long-sleeves or jackets, even in the middle of summer. Anything to keep her upper arm her own. 

She made it through seven different foster homes, five different schools, before she started her first day of high school at a school that had gym class uniforms. She’d made it through kids on the schoolyard taunting her, wanting to see her mark. _You probably don’t even have one_ , they’d jeer. _Kids like you don’t get a soulmate. Your own parents didn’t want you, how could anyone else?_

Well, they’d teased her until she socked the biggest one of them in the jaw, Joel with the snapped back hat and the one shirt he wore every goddamned day. They didn’t say anything after that. Didn’t get much chance to. That incident added another red flag to her file, another example of belligerence, and she’d been sent packing her things in a garbage bag and landed in a new home. 

A new home. A new school. By now, Emma knew the drill.

At least when Emma landed in a group home with a sympathetic name Emma would forget on her way out in a few months, she was starting a new school the same as everyone else in her class.

Emma kept to herself, didn’t bother to learn her classmate’s names or make friends. What did it matter? She’d be gone soon anyway. 

But she watched from the sidelines, observing the dynamics as she’d become so adept at over the years. Reading into interactions to determine who was on top of the food chain, who was being topped and who Emma would come out on top of in a fight.

There were a handful of couples who proudly flaunted their matching soulmate marks. The rest of the teenagers wore spaghetti straps, crop tops, short shorts or low rise jeans in an effort to peacock their way into finding their one true love. 

Emma knew better. She didn’t make connections. She didn’t grow roots.

Until she was given a sweat-wicking tank top and matching shorts in the school’s obnoxious blue and white colours. She protested, argued with her gym teacher who threatened to send her to the principal’s office. 

The last thing Emma needed was the school to make a complaint to the group home in her first week at school. Emma felt powerless, a feeling that kept her company when she packed her things from one home and tossed them into the corner of another.

All the kids in her class gawked.

Maybe they’d never seen a soulmate mark so large and imposing. Maybe they hadn’t believed that the foster kid from the wrong side of town would have a mark. 

It didn’t matter, Emma told herself. She fought against the prickling in her eyes because it didn’t matter that maybe someday there would be someone who could smooth her jagged edges. Emma was doing everything she could just to get by in this world. She didn’t need a distraction or promises that she could belong somewhere.

She belonged nowhere.

She figured soulmates were a lot like parents. Only a sure thing if they chose you. 

And with how much Emma had bounced around growing up, she figured chances meeting her soulmate were slight. Sure, it was destined. A perfect match. But only if your choices led you to them to begin with.

So Emma played an aggressive game of basketball and exuded _don’t fuck with me_ to anyone who came near. And she wrapped her sweater around herself the moment she was called to the bench. She was given a penalty, but at least it wasn’t a suspension.

Emma stared out the gym window, and dreamed of a life that was her own. Where destiny could fuck off and she could just survive, counting on the only person who would never let her down. Herself.

***

Emma was twenty eight when she met her son.

He showed up at her door with wide hazel eyes and a plan to bring her home and she, in equal parts, resented him for it and felt like an incomplete part of her began to fill.

He’d come prepared with a contingency, and Emma saw herself in this ten-year-old boy in a way she hadn’t known was possible. It was a familiarity, a kinship, and it was an entirely jarring and alien feeling. She’d called his bluff, because just as they might be cut from the same grain, she knew that a caring home (or at least a permanent one) would mean he was softer than she had been at his age.

But she drove him back to Storybrooke (seriously, who named this town?) regardless. When Emma had been returned to her foster homes after running away, it had been to parents who’d been relieved their monthly check would keep on coming. They welcomed her back like a business deal. She hoped that Henry would receive a warmer reunion. 

Henry was chatty on the drive there, seemingly trying to fill the space with everything she’d missed in ten years. He talked cryptically of curses and Emma wondered if this boy’s imagination would get the best of him.

Emma noticed his soulmate mark on his right wrist. It was simple, elegant, reminiscent of a bird in flight and Emma hoped she hadn’t left him with the disenchantment of soulmates her parents had given her.

She wondered if his mother had a soulmate to model True Love for him. Probably not, if Henry was convinced she was evil incarnate. Or, the Evil Queen, she was corrected. 

This Evil Queen turned out to be the Mayor. Because, of course her son would run away from the most powerful woman in his town. 

Emma took a deep breath to prepare herself for the first meeting of her birth son’s adopted mother. She looked up at Henry’s home. The house couldn’t even be called a house. It was a mansion and Emma let the imposing building impart the intimidation it was meant to. 

They didn’t even need to knock on the front door before a distraught, delicate woman ran down the front steps to reach her son.

“I found my real mom!” Henry shouted and he ran past her to a room he felt safe in. At home in. Emma had always dragged her feet when she’d been returned to her foster parents, trying to draw out her escape as long as possible.

“You’re Henry’s birthmother?” The woman asked, disbelieving and relieved and disappointed all at once. Emma couldn’t say she blamed her. 

“Hi.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your comments on the first chapter and the time you took to write them! It was lovely to read your reactions.
> 
> Please note that the rating has been changed to 'M' with this new chapter. So now is the time to jump ship.

It started with a _“How would you like a glass of the best apple cider you’ve ever tasted?”_ and Emma would rather drink paint thinner but instead she answered with a more polite _“got anything stronger?”_

It was awkward but not outright hostile, and Emma found herself staring at the scar on Henry’s mother’s lips longer than she probably should have. So she took a sip of her drink, thankfully not the offered cider, and she kept their conversation short.

She’d meant to leave town, truly. And she would have, if not for that wolf that had been in the middle of the road. But spending the night in the Storybrooke holding cell wasn’t the worst place she’s crashed and she dreamt of a little boy that held a red apple melting in his hand as his mother looked on with a grin that made Emma shiver. 

Henry left again, was gone in the morning. And Emma stayed.

Stayed to find him, stayed to keep tabs on him, stayed to infuriate his mother. Emma didn’t know exactly what motivated her to book a room at Granny’s Inn but she’d felt it in her bones, anchoring her to this town. It made her want to run as fast as she could, leave this feeling and this town behind. But this wasn’t only about her, not anymore.

Emma wasn’t surprised when she woke the next morning to a knock on her door. She was surprised, however, when she opened said door to a basket of apples larger than the woman who held it.

Henry’s mother wore a terrifying, stunning smile that froze as she took in the state Emma had answered the door in. Emma glanced down at herself, in her flimsy, white tank top and red underwear. Emma felt slightly sheepish, until she looked back up and saw where the woman’s gaze had landed. Emma instantly hardened. She didn’t move to cover her soulmate mark, stood defiantly bare beneath this woman’s gaze. 

“I—” The brunette began, but she didn’t make it to the end of her sentence before she lost her grip on the basket and red apples rolled into the room. The woman didn’t bend down to pick them up, but Emma was grateful for the distraction. She tossed the majority of them back into the basket, not caring about the fruits that have made their home under the bed.

“I do hope you like apples.” Regina said. “I figured you might need a snack for the road. Get home safe to Boston, Miss Swan.”

Regina pulled on the insincere smile she’d arrived with and turned on her heel. Emma closed the door and picked up an apple. She tossed it into the air, catching it absently as she thought of lips as red as the fruit in her hand, belonging to a woman who issued threats like it was her day job.

She looked out the window that gave a view of the main street. There were couples walking hand-in-hand and there was one that caught her eye. A man with a black tattoo snaking around his hand, interlaced with a woman who’s mark was bright blue on her forearm. Emma was too far away to tease out what the patterns were, but soulmate marks always had matching hues. She stared for too long, but they didn’t look up at the stranger in the window. Why would they? Ms. Lucas made it clear that guests at the inn were a rarity.

Emma didn’t leave town, as the Mayor had so subtly suggested. Instead, she went to the attached diner for breakfast. They had a wide selection of freshly baked pastries that smelled like one foster house that had almost become her home at three years old. Emma ordered a hot chocolate and a bear-claw, brushing off the wave of resentment, and sat at the window and watched the influx of patrons. 

There were two men, one with a shoulder covered in fire and the other with ripples of water adorning his collar. They sat in a booth, conversed in hushed tones and held hands over the table. Shortly after, a man and a woman with one mark like a galloping horse and the other like the wind blowing in the trees came in to order coffees to go. As Emma sipped her hot chocolate, she realized she was hard-pressed to recall a single couple she’d seen in this town that had matching soulmate marks. Granted, not everyone’s were visible, but it was just plain unlikely to not have seen one set yet.

Emma stayed there after her drink had gone cold, thinking of a her newfound son and a mismatched town and _maybe_ …

***

It was a step too close and eyes more fearful than threatening and a _“You bring back my son”_ that felt more like a plea than a demand. Henry wasn’t in the mines for long, but every moment pulled at her heart. Emma thought her heart might get some relief with Henry’s safe return, but the mayor stepped on it with her cold dismissal and reaffirmed Emma’s resolve to stay.

It was a heated fight in a cemetery where Regina lashed out and Emma responded in kind. Emma wasn’t trying to make a move on Graham, couldn’t care less who the Mayor was sleeping with in her spare time, but something about this woman boiled her blood on sight and she stopped thinking of what was rational and right and hit the Mayor square in the jaw.

It was the death of a new friend and a smeared campaign for sheriff. There was hardly time to grieve what could have been before Regina decided to throw this town to the wolves by designating Sydney as Graham’s successor, just to maintain her precarious control. Everything about this rubbed Emma the wrong way and she didn’t think, she just did. 

It was the feeling of the toothed blade of a chainsaw ripping through the bark of an apple tree. It wasn’t what she had really wanted, but it felt damned good to be on the offensive for once. Regina was livid as she marched over, which was actually pretty comical as she stepped carefully in her high heels to avoid sinking into the soft ground while shaking in a physical manifestation of rage. Her composure had cracked and it was satisfying in a way that made Emma think maybe this was what she was pushing back for.

It was a chess match and Emma has never been accused of being a cunning strategist.

Regina protected Henry with the ferocity of a mama bear, and even though her methods were completely misguided, Emma vaguely felt her heart tug. A place she’d long-since buried, that housed the feeling of having been wronged for not having someone who looked out for her this way.

But none of it mattered. Because she wasn’t here to satiate some part of her that never had a home, or to bait the mother of her child who was doing the best she could in all the wrong ways. No, she was here for Henry and it all became painfully clear that this rivalry between his mothers had been taxing on his wellbeing. He was still clinging to fairytales and the hope that his unhappiness could be cured by breaking a curse. 

A curse that was… real. 

Emma felt numb with the shock of it. Numb, and angry. It was true, it was all true and the woman she had pinned against the storage cabinet confirmed it with the fall of a tear. 

This woman, who’d poisoned their son and cast the curse that separated Emma from her parents at birth. Emma hated her, _hated_ her, but she hated the responsibility of being the Saviour more.

What did she know about magic and curses and slaying dragons? The answer was fuck-all. But Emma pushed through her resentment, felt like she was taking steps through molasses but as long as they led her back to Henry’s smiling face, she would take them in stride.

Emma climbed out of the elevator that had brought her most of the way up from the cavern below Storybrooke’s library, exhausted. She saw Regina tied up, duct tape over her mouth and the desperate attempts to reason why Gold had taken the egg but not helped her out of the stalled elevator quieted. The knowledge that they’d been double-crossed settled like a brick in her stomach.

She’d been so close. She’d gotten the egg through sheer willpower, only to be put her trust in the wrong man.

It felt vaguely familiar.

Regina pulled against her restraints in her chair and Emma looked over. She mused briefly that the Mayor was nearly pleasant like this, while she couldn’t speak, couldn’t insult. Emma dismissed the thought with a shake of her head and pulled the tape from full lips.

“Gold—” Regina started, nearly breathless with the need to give warning that had been forcibly held back.

“Yeah.” Emma said, sighing. She crouched down in front of Regina and began fiddling with the knots that tied her legs to the chair. They were tough, refusing to budge and Emma pulled harder at them, increasingly frantic in her attempt to undo them.

“For god’s sake, Emma.” Regina chastised. Emma gave one last tug and then, when the knot still didn’t loosen, let herself fall from her crouch to her knees. Her head dropped forward, landing on the warm thighs of the woman before her, her hands braced herself against the cold tiled floor. Emma let out a shaky sigh.

“What are we going to do?” Emma murmured. There was a rustling above her somewhere but Emma focused only on keeping a steady stream of oxygen flowing through her system.

“Well, you’re the Saviour. You’re destined to, um, save.” Regina said, slow, broken and unsure. 

“Destiny didn’t put Henry in that hospital bed.” Emma muttered. A hesitant hand brushed Emma’s hair from her face. Emma flinched but stayed where she was. Regina’s hand started stroking Emma’s hair, gaining confidence with every second Emma didn’t jerk away. She didn’t have the energy to move, didn’t have the energy to wonder when Regina had gotten her hands free, and certainly didn’t have the energy to understand the Evil Queen’s instinct to comfort, if a little awkwardly.

“No, I suppose not.” Regina said, her voice hollow. Emma’s knees were beginning to ache with her weight pressing into the hard floor. She slowly pulled back, not making eye contact with her fated nemesis who’d witnessed her moment of weakness. But Regina didn’t comment on it, didn’t try to wring her neck while she was down. Instead, all she said was: “Come on, dear. Let’s go find a way to save Henry.”

***

Regina’s carefully constructed world came crashing down around her. And she’d let it. She now truly understood what her mother had meant by _“Love is weakness, Regina”_ because it hadn’t even been hard, losing everything. Henry was too important and she’d give up anything if it meant there was the chance that she wouldn’t lose him along with it.

Now, she was scraping by on glimpses on the street and a supervised visit at Granny’s and it wasn’t enough. The Charmings—Emma—had taken the most important thing in her life. And she’d let them. Because deep down, she’d always known it would end this way. She didn’t get to hold onto nice things. She’d had to fight for every moment she’d had anything precious within reach.

So here she was, fighting, with a home-made lasagna and ignoring the snide comments from anyone who came too close. It was bearable, with Henry at her side. But he soon left in favour of more desirable (less evil) company and Regina felt her patience for running insults like water off her back leave with him. 

She got up from her stool on the corner of the bar and walked out of the diner unnoticed. Well, nearly.

“Regina, wait!” A voice that sounded like nails on a chalkboard called after her. Regina stopped in her tracks, turned to face the blonde who’d been a thorn in her side for months now. “Why don’t you stay for dessert?”

“I don’t—” Regina shook her head and trailed off. She plastered a smile on her face and continued. “Thank you for inviting me.”

Emma nodded and Regina turned to leave, tail between her legs, before she remembered herself. She didn’t cower in defeat, didn’t just accept the cards she’d been dealt and call it a day.

“I’d like to see more of Henry,” Regina said, facing Emma again. “I have his room all made up, just as he left it.”

Emma’s face sort of crumpled into a condescending smile. 

“I don’t think that’s best.” She said.

“What, in the thirty seconds you’ve been a mother, you know what’s best?” Regina couldn’t help but snap. Emma’s face let go of the attempted polite façade and set into an unyielding frown. Regina felt the hatred build up within her as she was forced to back-pedal, to bite her tongue and feign penance.

“I’m sorry, I just—” Regina didn’t know how to finish that sentence, she was unaccustomed to begging and she didn’t wear it well.

“Goodnight Regina.” Emma said, walking back into the diner. Regina felt herself deflate, though she held her head high on her walk back home, despite no one being around to see it. They were all still at the self-congratulatory potluck.

Regina settled in her study for the evening, nursing a glass of apple cider and entertaining ways she could regain full custody of her son without setting an angry mob on herself, again. There was a knock at the door that jolted Regina from her reverie. It was hesitant, almost as if it were unsure it really wanted to notify the inhabitant of their arrival. Regina certainly wasn’t expecting anyone.

Regina went to the door, nearly ripping it from the hinges as she opened it.

“Hi.” Emma was on her porch, fidgeting with a cleaned casserole dish in hand. “Uh, you forgot your dish.”

“I see that.” Regina said. She took the pyrex container from Emma before she dropped it. She turned and walked to the kitchen, leaving the door open. Clearly, Emma had more to say. A leftover dish was hardly reason for a late-night visit. “Are you coming in or just letting my AC out?” Regina called over her shoulder when Emma didn’t move from the doorstep.

Emma followed Regina into the kitchen. Regina put away the cleaned container, seeing no remnants of food particles upon her inspection, and Emma made no move to speak.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here or…” Regina prompted, covering her curiosity with feigned boredom.

“I, uh, may have been rash in denying you visits with Henry.” Emma said, so quietly Regina nearly missed it.

“So you’ve come here to say you’re going to _let_ me see my son?” Regina asked, her resentment bleeding into her voice.

“Regina,” Emma said, exasperated. As if she’d tired of this fight already, as if Regina’s anger at having her son taken away wasn’t warranted. 

“No, Miss Swan. You don’t get to chastise me for wanting to see the son I raised after you gave him up.” Regina exploded. “You don’t get to sit on your high horse that came with the title of ‘Saviour’ and make decisions on custody arrangements however the wind blows you that day.” 

“For god’s sake Regina, just because I’ve been thrown into the role of Saviour doesn’t mean I do everything right on the first try.” Emma snapped. She pushed her hair out of her face and sighed. Regina watched as the muscles beneath her soulmate mark flexed and fluttered with the movement. 

“I thought self-righteousness came with the welcome package to the Hero Club?” Regina said flatly. Emma threw her head back and groaned. She began pacing but didn’t leave. “Along with the promise of a great love story,” Regina nodded toward her soulmate mark, “and finding your happily ever after.”

“Oh fuck that,” Emma said, coming back toward Regina. “Being born a princess didn’t stop me from growing up an orphan. Whatever Destiny had planned for me, that reality is dead and gone.”

“Why flaunt your mark, then, if you aren’t desperately searching for your soulmate?” Regina asked, an edge to her question. Emma’s eyes clouded over, her shoulders tensed with the nerve that had been hit. Regina had always been a good shot.

“I’m done letting destiny dictate my actions.” Emma said, her voice rough and her eyes blazing. She placed her hand on Regina’s waist and Regina’s eyes widened and Emma pulled Regina flush against herself. Emma’s other hand tangled in Regina’s short hair and her lips against Regina’s tasted like relief.

They broke apart, Emma looking like she hadn’t been entirely in control of her actions and wasn’t sure how she felt about them. Regina’s breathing had quickened and she didn’t care for Emma’s moral deliberation.

“It’s ostentatious.” Regina growled, but she ran her fingertips along the edge of the abstract marking that reminded her of anything but her red apples, and reveled in the shiver it evoked in Emma. 

“It doesn’t matter.” Emma whispered, a decision made. She reunited their mouths in a fervent kiss. Her hands gripped at Regina tightly, as if any leniency would result in her floating away. Regina responded in kind, pulling the tank top from Emma’s torso as Emma unbuttoned her blouse. 

Regina let out a small gasp as Emma placed both hands on her ass and lifted her onto the kitchen counter. She wrapped her arms tightly around Emma’s shoulders, feeling the muscles work beneath her fingertips. 

Emma didn’t say anything as her fingers trailed down Regina’s sternum, reaching the mark of a lion’s mane between her breasts. Emma paid it no mind, save for a minor hesitation in her movements, a hitch in her breath. Fingers raced to expose more skin, pulling down the cup of Regina’s black lace bra and Emma’s mouth quickly trailed over the exposed breast.

Regina braced her hands against the cold counter as Emma bent down before her, taking once-unwrinkled slacks in hand and discarding them on the kitchen floor. She ran her hands slowly from Regina’s knees to her hips, settling herself between Regina’s legs. 

Emma slowly pushed Regina’s knees further apart and ran her tongue along her inner thigh, close but not quite where Regina needed her.

“Emma, don’t tease me.” Regina ordered. The command would have probably been more effective if it hadn’t been so breathless.

“I’m not a tease.” Emma said into Regina’s inner thigh as she traced the edges of Regina’s matching underwear. A shiver ran through Regina’s spine and she closed her eyes against it. 

“What do you call what you’re doing now, then?” Regina challenged, not opening her eyes.

“Foreplay.” Emma answered, pushing wet fabric to the side and dragging a flat tongue against Regina’s core.

“Emma, take me—” Regina began, her breath coming out in pants as she let out a guttural sound she’d deny ever making.

“Patience.” Emma interrupted. Regina rolled her eyes. 

“Upstairs.” Regina finished. Emma kissed her, wrapped her arms around her and lifted Regina off the counter with one hand under her thigh and the other along her back.

“With pleasure.” Emma said against Regina’s lips. Regina crushed them together. True to her word, Emma delivered.

***

Emma came back the next night. And the night after that. She made excuses, saying she was just checking in, making sure Storybrooke’s resident villain wasn’t burning down townhouses or looting the local pharmacy. Regina argued that checking up on someone usually involved more clothes. Emma usually then took the liberty of bringing them to the aforementioned undressed state, revealing skin and covering it in kisses. 

Their meetings were sporadic, unpredictable. But slowly, Regina noticed a pattern. If she rubbed circles on Emma’s shoulders just the right way, she’d grow a little bit sleepy, a little more inclined to share. She learned when Emma thought her mother was being a bit too ‘Snow White’ and not enough ‘Mary Margaret’, or when she was particularly overwhelmed as a new parent to a conflicted eleven year old, or when she felt the weight of the Saviour pushing her into the ground. And Regina, well, sometimes she shared too. It was how social protocol dictated this went, after all. No one gave something for nothing. 

“How did you get your scar?” Emma asked, tracing the line of her lip as they lay in Regina’s bed, thoroughly spent. Regina stared at the ceiling and Emma curled in closer to her side. Regina closed her eyes, felt every point of contact between heated skin. 

“My mother,” Regina started, surprised at her own voice. She hadn’t intended on answering truthfully. But Emma had moved her restless hand to cup Regina’s cheek and started stroking her cheekbone. The words had risen to the surface and she hadn’t even had to choke them out. “One day she found the limits of the punishment her magic could cover up.”

Emma hadn’t answered with apologies or platitudes. Rather, she rose to hover over top of Regina, replaced her thumb with soft lips and whispered against her skin “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” It was a bold statement, completely unwarranted for their context and despite the flutter of alarm stirring within Regina’s chest, her eyes rolled slightly upward and her eyelids closed and her back arched and she gave into Emma’s reassurances.

It was slow, getting to know the parts of each other they kept hidden for good reason. Like drawing out a caged animal who’s known nothing but fear its whole life, trying to convince it that the door really was open this time.

“When I first came to town, no one had a soulmate mark that matched their partner,” Emma said one night. “Did you notice that?”

“It was by design, dear.” Regina said, as if commenting on the weather or local building permit requests. 

“Now though, you can’t find a pair who doesn’t match.” Emma sounded resentful and oh, so small. “Well, except us, I guess.”

Regina let out a low chuckle, despite the topic being anything but funny. 

“Did you meet your soulmate? Back in the Enchanted Forest?” Emma whispered, when the cover of night made it feel safer to give voice to repressed insecurities. 

“Yes.” Regina said, cold and reluctant. “Both of them.”

She didn’t add any more and Emma didn’t ask. That wasn’t who they were. They shared only until it hurt and then the burned away the memories in hot kisses on bare skin.

Fighting off fairytale creatures and trying to tame Dark Ones and raising Henry together, along the way they fell into… something. Regina no longer looked at Emma with the resentment of sharing Henry, or as the daughter of her enemy. Sometimes, she’d look over at Emma and smile and think _maybe_ …

“I was thinking,” Emma said, spreading jam idly over toast while she sat on Regina’s counter in the wee hours of the morning before her parent’s would notice she hadn’t slept at the loft. “What do you think about Henry staying here full-time?”

Regina nearly burnt the eggs she was scrambling. 

“You know what I think.” Regina said cautiously, not wanting to knock a gift horse in its teeth.

“I’ll bring his things tonight.” Emma said, jumping off the counter in a movement that couldn’t be described as graceful. She did manage to get strawberry jam on the corner of her mouth in the process, and Regina more than willingly helped her clean it off. Regina was only slightly dismayed when she overcooked her eggs in the process.

Emma showed up just in time for dinner, with her own suitcase next to Henry’s. Regina raised an eyebrow.

“The loft was crowded.” Emma shrugged. Regina stepped aside as Emma fit into her home as if it had always been made to hold the three of them.

“Are you going to tell your parents about us?” Regina asked later that night, as Emma unpacked her clothes into the closet that hadn’t seen an off-brand garment in its life. 

“I don’t think they’re ready.” Emma said sheepishly. She didn’t look up from her suitcase, didn’t turn to face Regina leaning on the doorframe with her arms crossed. 

“ _They_ aren’t ready.” Regina echoed. If Emma was ashamed of her, well, she certainly couldn’t blame her.

“Well, it’s really going off-script, isn’t it? I told them I’m moving into the guest room. That it’s what makes sense for Henry.” Emma continued, dropping her underwear into a drawer and standing straighter. Regina took a step closer, rested one hand on Emma’s hip and the other snaked around her waist.

“I think we went off-script thirty years ago, dear.” Regina said softly as she lifted her heels in order to rest her chin on Emma’s shoulder. Emma laid her hands atop Regina’s and relaxed against her. 

“I just—” Emma said, her voice small and pleading for Regina to understand. She did.

“It’s alright, I know.” Regina said. She pressed a kiss to where neck met shoulder and Emma sighed. Regina did understand the hesitation, the fear of not living up to a parent’s expectations. Besides, like anything good in Regina’s life, she would lose Emma soon enough anyway. What did it matter what everyone else thought they were to each other when the inevitable happened?

Regina didn’t voice this sentiment, but she thought perhaps Emma picked up on it.

Because when Pan’s curse was rolling in and Regina stood at the town line feeling like she had in that lonely room of the palace after Tinkerbell left with her soulmate mark in hand, Emma pulled her close, into a searing kiss in front of a dumbstruck David, a mortified Mary Margaret, and an embarrassed Henry. 

“Don’t you dare say you will find me.” Regina warned through her tears. She held Emma close, tangling her hand in blonde locks and finding her curve of her waist. 

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Emma whispered before reuniting their lips once more. It felt like fire, and morning mist, and running out of time. Regina pushed at her shoulders and shook her head.

“Go.”

Because they didn’t say _I love you_. Not to anyone but Henry.


End file.
